Gas tax break would do more harm than good

Wednesday

Apr 27, 2011 at 2:00 AM

Dear N.H. House Speaker William O'Brien: Regarding your proposal for a temporary 5-cent discount on the state gasoline tax: Thanks but no thanks. Bridges, roads and highways in this state are in need of funding for the job-creating repairs that get our infrastructure up to the standards of the first world state that our affluent New Hampshire is. Cutting the means to reducing unemployment contradicts the rhetoric of you political party, which has proclaimed itself to be "all about" creating jobs.

April 24 — To the Editor:

Dear N.H. House Speaker William O'Brien:

Attempts to convey this message to you by e-mail have been met with an apparently closed inbox. I thank my local legislators and this newspaper for making this letter available to you.

Regarding your proposal for a temporary 5-cent discount on the state gasoline tax:

Thanks but no thanks. Bridges, roads and highways in this state are in need of funding for the job-creating repairs that get our infrastructure up to the standards of the first world state that our affluent New Hampshire is. Cutting the means to reducing unemployment contradicts the rhetoric of you political party, which has proclaimed itself to be "all about" creating jobs.

A growing majority of informed New Hampshire citizens knows that in the long run, a nickel off a gasoline tax will do the people and the financial health of this state more harm than good. Moreover, massive cuts in services to the most vulnerable citizens and to schools and colleges are much more serious matters to the folks of New Hampshire than what amounts to 1.5 percent of the price of gasoline.

The few dollars that this gas tax initiative (called a gimmick by some members of your own Republican Party) would save drivers pale in comparison to the soaking they're going to take in property tax increases for homeowners, or tenants who pay the property taxes charged to landlords, once the state cuts in essential services of the current House budget are downshifted to municipal governments.

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